OTTAWA — The horrible terrorist attack in Paris Wednesday came hours after Prime Minister Stephen Harper named as his new national security adviser a top bureaucrat who once warned that Canada's failure to deal with the threat of terrorism was "a serious blind spot."

That new adviser — his name, well known in Ottawa circles, is Richard Fadden — also cautioned against media and political "elites" who would rather "avert their eyes" to the problem of domestic terrorism than engage in serious debate how policymakers ought to respond to a world of increasingly sophisticated and resourceful terrorists.

Fadden made those comments in a 2009 speech just after Harper made him head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. CSIS was originally set up to counter foreign spies operating in Canada but certainly by the time Fadden took over, counter-terrorism had become one of its chief missions.

Harper, his senior ministers and political advisers would certainly have nodded approvingly at Fadden's 2009 speech. And now that he's been named to a position where he will be briefing and advising Harper daily (or more frequently) on national security issues, that 2009 speech is worth reviewing once again. Even more so, given the terrorist attacks last fall on Parliament and in Quebec and, this week, in Paris.

"Canada is not immune from terrorism, nor untouched by its effects," Fadden said in 2009. If he had to call that to our attention then, he certainly should not have to now.

And yet, he said: "Our elites tend to avert their eyes (when it comes to discussing national security), and media tend to give what little coverage they grant on this subject to groups that seem to feel that our charm and the Maple Leaf on our backpacks are all that we need to protect us."

"I suggest we have a serious blind spot as a country," Fadden continued. "Many of our opinion leaders have come to see the fight against terrorism not as defending democracy and our values, but as attacking them."

This, say those who know the prime minister well, is how Harper thinks. And you can be sure that, in this election year, with terrorist acts at home and abroad so fresh in our memory, Conservatives will argue that a robust, well-funded national security infrastructure with, perhaps, new legislative tools is precisely how one defends and advances Western democratic values.

Thomas Mulcair's New Democrats will likely say, as the NDP long has done, that new legislation — more surveillance powers, for example — would abrogate or restrict basic human rights. And if that happens, they will say, "the terrorists win."

Justin Trudeau's Liberals have, over the last several months, seemed more sympathetic to the NDP position on national security, notable if only because previous Liberal governments once introduced extraordinary measures themselves in the face of extraordinary security threats. Think Pierre Trudeau and October 1970 for example. Or Jean Chretien after 9/11.

Coincidentally, Fadden was a security adviser to Chretien through that crisis. Fadden has a long history in these matters.

And yet, in 2009, Fadden would observe: "For a G8 member and important middle power with a long history of positive engagement in the world, debate about national security in Canada is, for the most part, fairly sparse."

And finally, to Fadden in 2009 once again for a summing-up of what insiders say is Harper's starting argument on this "sparse" debate: "Terrorism itself is often portrayed not as a real crime, but as a political one. Terror is downgraded to a form of dissent, an act of revolutionary charm rather than a criminal code offence and a violation of international human rights standards. But I have to ask bluntly: can those who downplay the seriousness of terrorism claim to be protecting our civil liberties?"